science
Adam Sweeting
Ridley Scott’s original Alien movie from 1979 was an all-time sci-fi/horror classic, and even an endless stream of sequels and spin-offs – Aliens, Alien 3, Alien Resurrection, Alien vs Predator, Prometheus, Alien: Romulus et al – hasn’t diluted the electrifying impact of the original.Now FX and Disney have shovelled a shed-load of money into this glossily-produced series for TV, written and directed by Noah Hawley (Fargo, Legion etc). But can it boldly go where no Alien-related product has gone before?Er... not really, it's more a case of reshuffling themes from previous incarnations. Alien: Read more ...
Robert Beale
Opera can take many forms and fulfil many purposes: this chamber opera by Zakiya Leeming and Sam Redway is about vaccination. Based on history, it has a story to tell and lessons to teach.“A new opera on medicine, memory and innovation” was the subtitle, and that sums up the themes it explores – but the abstractions are brought to life as aspects of the tale of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, the early 18th century aristocrat whose experience of a Turkish public bath enabled her to discover and then promote the practice of inoculation (or, to be precise, variolation – introducing infected matter Read more ...
Jon Turney
The slightly overwrought subtitle, "How Digital Language Created and Connects Our World and Shapes Our Future", gives a good indication how computer enthusiast Sam Arbesman treats his subject. Software, written in a variety of programming languages whose elements we refer to as code, is ubiquitous.It underlies many parts of modern life, and current efforts look like extending its reach profoundly. And, while we can try to understand it by reading books like this, it’s not clear that we can influence it. Although it is made by humans, it is easy to get the impression (digital Read more ...
Jon Turney
Henry Gee’s previous book, A Brief History of Life on Earth, made an interestingly downbeat read for a title that won the UK’s science book prize. He emphasised that a constant feature of that history is extinction. Disappearing is simply what species do. A few endure for an exceptionally long time (hello, horseshoe crabs), but all suffer the same fate in the end. Some at least go down as ancestors of succeeding species. Many more just vanish. Evolution permits gradual development of more complex forms. That’s how we got here. But the way it works – by reproduction with variation, then Read more ...
Jon Turney
Working on materials was basic to human culture from the start: chipping at flint to make a hand-axe; fashioning bone or wood; drying hides. In time, people discovered that some materials, especially when put to trial by fire, were special: harder, shinier, more attractive, or more deadly.Philip Marsden is interested in those materials, yes, but especially in the now-buried traces of their excavation. And his latest book – Under a Metal Sky: A Journey Through Minerals, Greed and Wonder – is interestingly difficult to characterise. It’s a blend (an alloy?) of geology, archaeology, Read more ...
Adam Sweeting
An opening sequence of a drone flying over a busy street in Baghdad, followed by a huge explosion that leaves many casualties and a gaping hole where a row of buildings used to be, suggests that Prime Target is going to be another special forces, war-on-terror type of drama. Refreshingly, that first impression is quickly dispelled as the action abruptly detours to bucolic Cambridge, where we meet brilliant PhD student Ed Brooks (Leo Woodall), who lets off steam outside the groves of academe with a blast of power-rowing on the Cam.But his real mission in life (we will learn) is his fascination Read more ...
theartsdesk
Billie Holiday sings again, Olivia Laing tends to her garden, and Biran Klaas takes a chance: our reviewers discuss their favourite reads of 2024.Joe Boyd’s And the Roots of Rhythm Remain (Faber & Faber, £30) delivers handsomely on the promise of its subtitle: a journey through global music. The veteran producer and promoter has been soaking up the varied music of many cultures since long before that problematic term “world music” was invented. I was hooked on his border-hopping conspectus of much of the most interesting music of the last century from the opening long chapter on South Read more ...
Justine Elias
Marie Curie excepted, movies about female scientists remain scarce, not just because STEM careers and Nobel Prizes still favour men. Now comes the British-made Joy, which explores women’s contributions to a decades-long quest to cure infertility.This cozy historical drama traces the leadup to the birth of so-called “test-tube baby” Louise Brown, the first person conceived outside the womb, with an emphasis on the behind-the-scenes work of a woman who helped make it happen. Along with Dr. Robert Edwards, an embryologist, and Dr James Steptoe, an ob-gyn, Jean Purdy, a nurse and laboratory Read more ...
Rachel Halliburton
It’s not often that a classical music concert offers to take you beyond the stratosphere and back, but this intriguing evening from the City of London Sinfonia did precisely that with considerable élan. All too frequently there’s a considerable gap between a fantastic idea and its satisfying execution, yet this musical trip from the Antarctic to the Arctic via different cloud formations proved to be as stimulating as it was passionately engaging.That was due in no small part to the contribution of Dr Simon Clark (pictured below, far right), an atmospheric scientist who’s the author of a book Read more ...
Adam Sweeting
It’s over 50 years since men last landed on our orbiting space-neighbour, but director Greg Berlanti's Fly Me to the Moon transports us back to the feverish days in 1969 when Apollo 11 was about to tackle the feat for the first time. The film’s promo material rather misleadingly bills it as “a sparkling rom-com”, but it has a few other strings to its bow. For instance, it’s partly a satire on American capitalism and the advertising business, takes a few sideways glances at the Vietnam war, and has inherited some of the DNA of a political thriller.It’s an eccentric mixture, but it works thanks Read more ...
Jon Turney
For a couple of decades, the free video game America’s Army was a powerful recruitment aid for the US military. More than a shoot-em-up, players might find themselves dressing virtual wounds, struggling to co-ordinate tactics with their squad, and facing other supposedly realistic aspects of active service. The realism, of course, had one strict limit. If you died, you could reset the game and play again.The game is one of innumerable examples in Kelly Clancy’s book of how the invented reality of play worlds has an appeal which is functional for some, potentially catastrophic for others. Read more ...
Gary Naylor
There are many women whose outstanding science was attributed to men or simply devalued to the point of obscurity, but recent interest in the likes of DNA pioneer Rosalind Franklin and NASA’s Katherine Johnson has given credit where credit is due. Marie Curie was never diminished, the woman with two Nobel prizes and the discoveries of radium and polonium on her CV needs no such championing, a figure known by schoolchildren the world over. And yet there’s something that stirs in the back of the mind, something that complicates a story of stunning success often against the odds. When the Read more ...